Consider for a moment that our complex system is like a spider web, with intertwining strands that are constantly weakening and breaking. If the right combination of strands breaks, the entire web collapses. There is no amount of command-and-control management that can direct workers to fix each strand one by one. Instead, we must create the organizational culture and norms that lead to everyone continually finding and fixing broken strands as part of our daily work. As Dr. Spear observes, “No wonder then that spiders repair rips and tears in the web as they occur, not waiting for the failures
...more
